Complex Patients Benefit from Team Approach
A team-based approach helps improve control of diabetes, coronary heart disease, and depression in the primary care setting by modifying both patient and physician behaviors, researchers found. Compared with usual care, a collaboration between a nurse care manager, physicians, and patients increased initiation of various types of medication, rates of treatment adjustment, and self-monitoring by patients, according to Elizabeth Lin, MD, MPH, of Group Health Cooperative in Seattle, and colleagues.